EPoS Contribution
EPoS Contribution
Kinematics of Star Formation in the Perseus Molecular Cloud

Helen Kirk
University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada
The Perseus molecular cloud is a nearby star-forming region in which both low and intermediate mass stars are forming. A wealth of data at a variety of wavelengths exists over a large extent of the cloud. Analysis of the column density distribution has placed strong observational constraints on models of star-formation and cloud support (see the presentation in this conference by Johnstone). Here, we present results from an IRAM survey of the dense cores within Perseus, in order to place similar constraints on the kinematics of the region. We observed over 150 candidate objects, ranging from starless cores to protostars, in N2H+, a good dense gas tracer. The previous column density analysis revealed large moderate extinction regions (Av > ~5) in which all of the major star-formation occurs (e.g., NGC 1333, IC 348, B1, etc). Our dense core observations span all of these extinction regions. We measure both the internal kinematics (internal level of turbulence of each core) as well as the kinematic properties of the group of independent cores over each extinction region and the cloud as a whole. These measures are compared with predictions from turbulent simulations.